


In the Black

by feldman



Category: Farscape, Firefly
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-01
Updated: 2011-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-18 20:19:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feldman/pseuds/feldman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Multiverse Challenge 2005: Simon had given her these shoes so she wouldn't go barefoot, but she hadn't recognized them as ballet shoes until some alien had. Deduction: there were other humans here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Black

The captain put Serenity on lockdown just after she limped into the station and docked.

Now, Mal gave no never mind to the fact that the place was swarming with honest-to-god aliens, he was concerned about the welfare of his crew and getting his ship back to work. Aliens or no, they came for repair and they sure weren't capable of leaving without it. So Kaylee drew up the specs for the fei wu part, the shepherd volunteered for the jab in the arm that the grey docking supervisor had gestured frantically about, and Mal packed the smile and the firepower to get them in and out as fast as possible.

Simon likely would have had a few things to say about the shepherd's vaccination if he hadn't been busy sleeping off panic and his own inoculation. Jayne may have been a mite quick and way too happy to suggest sedatives all around, but then the mere proposal of intervention had been enough to cut through the rest of the crew's varied levels of hysteria. When Simon just kept ranting about reality and not being alone in the universe, Zoe had calmly reached for the needle to assist Dr. Tam in dealing with the whole da bian hua.

Reality was a busted compression coil. Reality was getting Kaylee to a reputable replication shop, no matter how many heads the proprietor happened to sport, and getting Serenity back in the black both physically and financially. Reality was being damned happy there was a shop to begin with, even if Kaylee had to translate the specs through two methods of measurement, a completely different system of tech and a shepherd with a surprisingly handy new alien infection in his brain.

So far, things were working out well. Then Inara came through the eye-popping crowd to tell him River'd gone missing.

***

The image snagged her, caught at a wisp of her wonder like a twig hooking into the loose weave of a sweater.

Refugee from ballet class.

She cocked her head, let her sensorium expand and fill, thoughts around her filling the air, growing like trees, roots punching through deck plates like so much mud, branches tangled and bent low under the weight of questions and cares, noxious flavors of memory and words spoken like metal clanging.

Curious and reassuring that the emotions felt the same, that sentience and connection had the same texture throughout the 'verse.

Refugee from ballet class. Thin leather soles conformed to her own living soles, black like the combat boots she'd left on Serenity but almost like having no shoes at all. Sometimes she needed to feel the ground, to balance and sense. Simon had given her these shoes so she wouldn't go barefoot, but she hadn't recognized them as ballet shoes until some alien had. Deduction: there were other humans here.

She focused on the image, scenting through the forest of thought that had sprung up through the station. She followed him.

***

"Hey Gramma, you almost ready?"

His accent was so backwater it was barely coherent, and the reply that murmured from the badge on his coat was inscrutable sound, but unlike the handful of Sebaceans that only the shepherd could understand, he was human and his words were hers, even if bent at confusing angles.

"Just lemme know if you need help with the groceries. I'm at the pod."

She sidled closer as he sat down on a step of the ladder leading into his ship, weariness tucked into black leather and a brasswork frame. She crept on sensitive feet, silent leather on metal deck plates. He scanned the area, slipped a hand into his jacket, dosed himself in the space of two heartbeats and shook his head hard.

A hand dropped onto her shoulder, hot through the fuzz of her sweater. "Human, you say?"

The man heard her startle, heard her feet rasp on the deck as she turned to see the being behind her. Soon she was trapped between them, shod like a vulnerable sole in a snug trap of black leather.

"You okay, there? I saw you in the Zocalo earlier, you lost?" He ignored the alien and spoke only to her, his concern a broken thing that still tried to work.

"Not lost." She half-turned and shifted back. Standing between them was like standing between Zoe and Wash during a fight, like feeling the current rise before lightning struck too close. They both had blue eyes, but while the alien's saw everything, the man only saw her. "I see a ghost."

The man's brow crinkled further. The alien walked around behind him, dragging his fingers across the breadth of the man's shoulders as he whispered into her head, "Xiao mei mei, you are more right than you think."

"Who's a ghost?"

"He thinks he killed me, and perhaps he had the right to try." The alien shrugs slowly, the shoulder plates of his armor rearranging like the shells over insect wings. "But I have always lived inside this mind of his, and I dwell here still."

The man bent his head down to look at her closely. River looked just as deeply into him, saw him pressed between an echo and a threat, saw he was shod from boot to neck in leather but hypersensitive like raw skin. "Darlin', you sure you don't have people looking for you?"

Her fingers caught in the straps of his jacket, hard buckles hanging like combat medals. "Black armor, cold logic; screw the enemy at his own game."

The man straightened.

The alien bared black gums and sharp teeth, sibilant as he dismissed her. "The whole species must be unhinged. An empty comfort at best."

The man reconsidered her, and the refugee from ballet class no longer existed in his head.

"It only works in theory. You can't devolve into a reptile in practice. Can't stop the heart beating without killing the brain."

"Telepathic." The man's voice softened into something akin to Zoe's dong ma tone, intimate and on the edge of deadly. "Bad enough I still have nightmares about the late great pooka sonofabitch, now I'm broadcasting 'em on the Psychic Network. Listen, Little Red."

The heat of his hands bled through gloves and the fuzzed yarn of her sweater, into her skin. He felt like he was beginning to fray, the chitin shell dissolving from within faster than he could replace it. Anger and fear and pain vibrated beneath, reverberating with her own like a heart between them shivering instead of beating.

"You're just seeing the shadow of the big bad wolf. Just some fur left on the couch and some piss in the carpet. Don't let it freak you out. The freak's long gone."

"Mei mei, there you are. Oh, thank God."

The man drew back and drew in, nodding to the shepherd as he came across the docking bay for her. The man hastened back to his ship, reaching into his jacket. The alien shadowed him with an easy stride.

The shepherd eased her back toward the marketplace, musing, "The 'verse is a wide and wondrous place, child."

"Just means more small spaces. You can still get trapped."

The shepherd pressed his lips together and patted her shoulder.

She hooked a finger into the heel of her shoe, stripping them off and walking back to Serenity with the rough decking hard under her feet, wily like a rabbit in the forest.


End file.
